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A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy

By Laurence Sterne (1713-1768)

After the bizarre textual antics of "Tristram Shandy/' this book would seem to require
a literary health warning. Sure enough, it opens in mid-conversation upon a subject
never explained; meanders after a fashion through a hundred pages, then fizzles out
in mid-sentence - so, a plotless novel lacking a beginning, a middle, or an end. Let us
say: an exercise in the infinitely comic.

"There is not a secret so aiding to the progress of sociality, as to get master of this
short hand, and to be quick in rendering the several turns of looks and limbs with all
their inflections and delineations, into plain words."

Sterne calls his fine sensitivity to body language (as we now term it) "translation."
Much of the pleasure to be had from this wonderfully engaging book comes from his
unmatched ability to extract random details from the chaos of experience to create
comic turns imbued with Feeling. His Parson Yorick is the Sentimental Traveller:
certainly a Man of Feeling, but one in whom "Nature has so wove her web of
kindness, that some threads of love and desire are entangled with the piece..."
(Summary by Martin Geeson)

Total running time: 05:59:45; read by Martin Geeson. Dedicated Proof-Listener: Stav
Nisser. Meta-Coordinator/Cataloging: J. M. Smallheer.

This recording is in the public domain and may be reproduced, distributed, or modified without
permission. For more information or to volunteer, visit librivox.org. Cover image by DanyJack
Mercier. http://www.publicdomainpictures. net/view-image. php?image=23087&picture=nice-06.
Cover design by Janette Brown. This design is in the public domain.

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